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Man sentenced for Leesburg murder
In a ruling more harsh than that proposed in Virginia's sentencing guidelines, Judge Thomas D. Horne sentenced 21-year-old Narciso Landero-Pons last week to serve 30 years in prison for the murder of Jose Eduardo Santos-Machado.
Santos-Machado, 27, was killed Jan. 16 in Leesburg.
Landero-Pons pleaded guilty in July to second-degree murder. The sentencing guideline for second-degree murder is a prison sentence from 12 years and nine months to 21 years and four months.
At the sentencing Nov. 6 in Loudoun County Circuit Court, Horne opted to disregard the guidelines and sentenced Landero-Pons to 40 years in prison with 10 of them suspended. He said he made the decision because of the “suggestion of premeditation” in Landero-Pons' crime.
Santos-Machado was found shot to death inside his parked car, which police discovered still running on Woodberry Road in northeast Leesburg.
During a preliminary hearing March 6, Oneyda Villacorta, Santos-Machado's girlfriend, who had also had a relationship with Landero-Pons, said Landero-Pons was jealous of her relationship with Santos-Machado.
Landero-Pons was Villacorta's roommate at an apartment on Fort Evans Road that she shared with her brother, sister-in-law and niece.
At the Nov. 6 sentencing hearing, Landero-Pons testified through an interpreter that Villacorta asked him to “scare” Santos-Machado “because he had other women and she was jealous.”
He testified that Villacorta gave him money to buy the gun but said they “hadn't talked about wanting to shoot Jose.”
On the evening of Jan. 16, Santos-Machado went to Villacorta's home for dinner while he was on a break from his job at Wal-Mart.
Landero-Pons testified that he waited outside for Santos-Machado and asked for a ride to a place where he could find a room to rent. Santos-Machado agreed and drove Landero-Pons to the area on Woodberry Road.
“I pulled the gun out and put it in my left hand,” Landero-Pons said. “When I told him not to come around anymore, he grabbed at the gun, I fell to the back and the gun fired.”
Landero-Pons testified that after that, he ran home.
“I did not see Jose bleeding,” he said. “I never turned to see him.”
Earlier in the hearing, Gary Arntsen, a firearms expert, testified that firing the gun Landero-Pons used takes a moderately long trigger pull and 7.5 pounds of pressure on the trigger.
This, combined with the fact that Landero-Pons had to have loaded the gun, led Horne to say there was “a suggestion of premeditation.”
The assistant commonwealth's attorneys prosecuting the case asked for a minimum 27-year sentence, one year in prison for each year of Santos-Machado's life.
Public defender Bonnie Hoffman, who along with public defender Wayne Kim represented Landero-Pons, asked Horne to sentence her client in the middle range of the guidelines.
“Nobody has ever denied or said there wasn't thought and planning,” Hoffman said. “It's just the thought and plan was never to kill anyone.”
When given the opportunity to address the judge, Landero-Pons first spoke to Santos-Machado's two brothers who were in the courtroom.
“I ask for forgiveness with the greatest pain,” he said through an interpreter. “If I could return your beloved brother to you, I would do so.”
In the end, Horne sided with the commonwealth.
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